Only a crack
by Lolli-x
Summary: Jensen's reaction to the events in Bolivia.


Warnings: language and mentions of death. Also probably horrible grammar mistakes, autocorrect hates me, but I think I caught all of them.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this except the storyline.

This was inspired by linkin parks song castle of glass although I didn't end up using much of it.

Only a crack

Nothing can prepare you for watching a helicopter of innocent burning bodies falling to the ground around you. No amount of CAPE or Spec Ops training can help you stay whole as laughs are replaced with screams which are replaced by silence in mere seconds. There is _nothing_ beautiful about this silence. It's jagged and broken and _wrong_. Everything about this situation is _wrong_. The only one speaking is Cougar! How is this right! He may only be praying but he's said more in one go now than he has in the ten years I've known him and I, Jacob Jensen, am speechless. If we weren't witnessing the end of 25 young souls in our place, I'm sure someone would have some sort of wisecrack about this monumental occasion but they're all too awestruck and trapped in their own grief to notice.

Clay's collecting our dog tags, it's a smart move, show the enemy he got what he wanted so we can end his glory in a mess of fire and explosions. For some reason though, no plan of revenge that I can come up with seems fitting for this villain with a throat and a name and not a lot else yet. The names probably fake. Heck the voice is probably fake. We have nothing to go on just a ghost that's framing us as murderers.

Framing us for his crime for the world to see. Smart move, if we were actually dead. Now he's just made the losers angry by killing off 25 kids around Beth's age like they were no better then hired mercs in a drug cartel. Oh God, Beth. And Jackie. They're gonna watch the news, they're gonna get a phone call saying their Uncle and Brother is a traitor. They're gonna think I'm dead, and there's nothing I can do in this shit hole of a town without internet or signal or even decent satellites passing over it. Little Bethy's gonna have to deal with a class of very impressional 7 year olds thinking her uncle killed 25 children. God fucking damn it! Nothing about this situation is fair!

Since Cougar's moment of prayer he's not said a word. He's not even speaking with his eyes anymore. Damn I miss his eyes and they're usefulness! Curse Max for stealing them away! The whole team's just sort of drifting and I'm helpless to stop their downward spiral, probably cause I'm right there with them. Doesn't mean I can't try.

Once the initial shock wore off I've been trying to act normal, enough to show that we can come back from this without annoying them, or myself. It's a good thing I'm a great actor. It's breaking my heart watching Pooch late at night staring at his wedding ring with tears in his eyes, hearing Roque and Clay get back late, drunk and unfulfilled, listening to Cougs toss and turn. I've given up trying to sleep. It only happens when my body's too exhausted to dream until I'm woken by nightmares. Other than that small reprieve I pass the time on my laptop attempting to hold a signal long enough to find a way home.

Pooch smiled at a joke I made! This is progress finally! Cougs is back to talking without speaking again, it's so good to know he's not been completely broken by this. Roque and Clay are still gambling what little we have in the cock fights but I think they're starting to win, that or they're getting over the… incident, I don't know what else to call it. They don't seem as drunk and angry when they get home though, that's always a positive.

Cougs managed to get us jobs at the factory today. Pooch has been working in a garage for the last week. I don't think we're gonna get home from this.

I'm so tired of this place.

I want to go home.

I was an idiot to think I'd never need Spanish 'cuz I had Cougs. I don't understand anyone here but my team and after 3 months of that it's getting boring. Sometimes, when I'm especially sleep deprived, I think going back to the house I grew up in would be better, where I had to constantly be on edge to protect Jackie. At least then I knew why I was being shouted at. Here people just start shouting and I don't know why. Cougar just laughs and won't tell me what happened. I think it's probably because I'm talking too loud, sometimes due to sleep deprivation preventing me from registering how loud I'm speaking. Other times I do it just to drown out the noise of 25 little lives ending that's playing on repeat in my head. I wish I could see Bethy again.

Everyone else seems back to normal, relatively speaking. Cougs is as vocal as he used to be, he wakes up a bit more often than before but, I guess, he has another nightmare to worry about so I suppose it's to be expected. Pooch now has a nightly routine of saying goodnight to his ring, but he no longer does it with tears in his eyes. If I ever get somewhere with a stable enough internet connection I need to try and get him some info on how Jolene's doing. Clay and Roque are acting like nothing happened except Roque's getting frustrated. He wants to be back on US soil. He doesn't give a shit about clearing his name but trying to pick up women in Bolivia is difficult when they don't understand a word you're saying.

After burning down the hotel that has given us shelter, admittedly not very sanitary shelter but shelter none the less, Clay's dragged us to a cemetery of all places to meet his new lady friend. I'm on the lookout for bombs, Coug's is gonna check for any other traps, hopefully we can get out of this with all of our limbs intact. I'm not holding much hope. At least they won't have far to drag our bodies.

They're mocking me for my shirt. My one fucking connection to my family and they're treating it like any other top I wear, even Cougs is smirking. I grin and bare it, can't show weakness in front of Clay's new potentially deadly girlfriend. I laugh off the comments, I can cry about it later, for now there's finally an English speaking female nearby, I'm going to make the most of it. Operation flirt with the least trustworthy person in the cemetery is a go. Damn, I'm turning into Clay.

Coffins. Seriously? Like this year needed to be made worse, Aisha just had to go and mix my 2 worst fears, flying when I can't see if we're heading in the right direction and being buried alive, granted we're not actually being buried but it's close enough. Way too close for comfort. I don't think I can get in this coffin. What if she takes us further from the US? What if the lids get stuck? What if she leaves us and we really do get buried? How the fuck can we trust her? She just turned up and happened to be after the same person as us. Way too fucking convenient. She's gonna kill us. I won't be able to tell Beth I'm alive, that I didn't kill those 25 children. Except for I did. I helped put them on the helicopter. Either way Jackie's gonna kill me when she finds out I'm alive but didn't tell her. At least I'd see her. But not if Aisha kills us first. Maybe we deserve it. Heck we deserved it more than those 25 children did. Shit Cougs is looking at me funny. Have I been breathing? I don't think so. Damn it! I'm supposed to be staying calm so everyone else can freak out. But 25 kids are dead 'cuz I didn't work out fast enough that it was a trap. I didn't work hard enough to stop it from happening. We've been stuck in Bolivia for most of a year 'cuz I'm an idiot. I should've been working harder to get us home and not making stupid dolls for basically nothing which Roque and Clay used straight away for gambling and booze anyway. Everyone's looking at me now. Maybe my internal ramblings aren't as internal as they were when I started. But I can't do this anymore. I can't get in that coffin.

Before I can shatter completely Cougs and Pooch surround me and sit me down. They tell me everything I've been telling them since the crash and calm me down enough that I can get in the coffin and bid Bolivia goodbye. They promise to help me through it when we land in the US. They promise that we're gonna make it home. They promise that it's not my fault. They remind me that I helped them through their grief and tell me that they'll help me through mine now. lucky for me Aisha wasn't around to witness my breakdown. But it was only a crack in the castle of glass, hardly anything there for them too see. There's so much more I need to deal with, maybe I can start with the whole sleep deprivation thing, I've got a long journey in a dark box, perfect for sleeping. I'm nowhere near fixed, but they know I'm not whole right now, so maybe by the time I get back to my family there will only be a crack left and the rest of the castle will be fixed Hopefully using a sturdier material. Like bricks. Who makes a castle out of glass anyway?

Thank you for reading :) Please leave a review :)


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